In our own image: Why we treat things like people

Cursing computers, talking to plants, even putting pigs on trial&colon; anthropomorphism may be irrational, but it’s how we cope with an indifferent world

IT WAS a classic open-and-shut case. As Jehan Martin slept in his bed an intruder crept in, killed him and mutilated his body. Witnesses had seen a female enter the house on the day of the attack. She was subsequently taken into custody and tried in court. The trouble was the perpetrator happened to be a pig.

Historical records document at least 200 trials in which an animal was the principal defendant. So this case in 1457 is by no means an isolated incident. The accused were often assigned lawyers and confined to jail during trials. Occasionally they were acquitted – a donkey on trial for lewd sexual acts, for example, was freed after loyal supporters testified that she was “in all her habits of life a most honest creature”. When these animals were found guilty, however, they were usually hanged like a human criminal.

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As rational, educated people, it’s easy to smirk at attempts to try animals in a court of law – but one should not be too hasty. After all, the people involved were falling prey to an irrational trait that afflicts us all from time to time&colon; they were anthropomorphising.

Maybe you talk to your plants, name your car, or shout at your computer from time to time. Or perhaps you believe in a personified God. “We are hard-wired to see human-like beings everywhere,” says Stewart Guthrie …